Website Content Basics

In this series of posts I will try to go through the basic content for a standard business website. From homepage content to keywords, title tags and images I will take a brief look at each element. The main job of a web designer is to make your site look nice. Your job is to back this up with good content.

Whether your starting a new business or a seasoned company you should really consider your websites content carefully. The recession changed how people spend their money and who they do business with. A lot of customers still have the same money they had before all the doom and gloom arrived, but now they want to better understand exactly what their money is being spent on. They want value for their money. They want to do business with companies who put the Customer first.

The days of companies selling themselves by telling people how great they are, how many offices they have, which big clients they deal with etc. are well and truly over. We are back to basics. This is a great thing for everyone concerned if we learn to adapt and provide what people want not what we want to say. Customers may not always be right but they pay the bills so their opinion is a lot more important than the sellers opinion.

Your websites content needs to show potential customers that you value them enough to take the time to write the content specifically for them rather than doing a copy and paste from a few of your competitors websites. If you just say exactly what your competitors says then what sets you apart or shows them why they should do business with you ?

Only promise what you can deliver

Taking the time to put good content into your website creates a synergy for the customer. Content wrote by you reflects your attitude and gives a feel for the kind of person you are and the kind of company people will be dealing with. If your site is full of quotes like “we go the extra mile” or “tailor made services” etc, then someone calls you looking for a custom job and you say “we don’t do that” then the content is out of sync and doesn’t reflect who you are as a business. There is no point promising people everything and only delivering half of that. If you promise something and don’t deliver then people are disappointed and will tell everyone they know about their disappointment. If you promise small things which you know you can provide 100% of the time and then deliver that extra mile when people aren’t expecting it they will be nicely surprised.